Forum:"Nitpicks" in articles about real stuff
This post is inspired by the recent edit history of the article on Christopher Columbus, which now states that he proved the world was round. That's true according to canon, but in reality is a misconception. However, a background note pointing this out was removed. I've seen similar cases in the past where a note tried to point out a misconception was removed. The vast majority seems history related, though the issue pops up in geography as well. The reasons given are usually either that that it's a nitpick, or that we only cover what was said in trek and it's up to the reader to click the external link if they want to know more. The first reason is a rock solid application of our policy, and the secnd is a fair point at least. However what I want to argue here is that I think an exception ought to be allowed in these cases. The way I see it, it's sort of a moral issue: while it's not in our mission to teach history, and you'd have to be an idiot to base your actual historical knowledge on either this site or a tv series, in reality people coincidentally reading these misconceptions might very well believe them. I don't think we ought to hide behind the "our job is just to document what was said" excuse when an articles perpetuate bad information, if we can very easily break the chain with a small note. Doing so may not be in our job description, but it's just dumb to follow the nitpick rule so rigidly that our readers might come away with their general knowledge base adversely impacted. -- Capricorn (talk) 19:49, June 7, 2016 (UTC) :Assuming nobody else has ever fixed that page the way I just did, I think I've handled part of the problem by attributing (partially) the tale to the character who claimed it was so. I suppose a bgnote could simply say, this was not actually true.--LauraCC (talk) 19:56, June 7, 2016 (UTC) ::Policy specificly states that bgnotes "discussing" the accuracy of information from canon resources are allowed, but "[[MA:NIT|comparisons or discrepancies between the ''Star Trek universe and the real world]]" are nitpicks. I'm inclined to support the resource policy here, since there are ways to cover these issues without getting nitpicky, which we do for the given example of that type of nitpick. Clearly some wording clarification is necessary. - 06:06, June 8, 2016 (UTC) (Before my actual argument: the USSR example is a bit different. All the article says it that the soviet union existed in the 20th century, was disbanned in the nineties, but played some role in the future, implying reformation. Since we don't know what the future holds, that's not technically a discrepancy with real life) Anyway, maybe I'm just lacking in creativity but I have some experience walking the line between an ok bg note and one that runs afoul of our rules (which I generally agree with), and I just don't think the goal I argue we should strive for here can always be accomplished without violating the nitpick rule. How would you accomplish what I argue should be clear from the Columbus article for example? And that's meant as a concrete question; maybe it is possible, but personally I have thought about it and just wouldn't know how to word the article to both be rules-compliant and not risk gullible readers walking away with misinformation about Columbus. Laura's suggestion to use the long-honoured tactic of only saying a character said it I think will go over the head of casual readers as far as accomplishing the actual goal of making clear it isn't true - it might make us feel absolved, but it doesn't actually do much. Again, please understand that my argument steps outside of the narrow world of this wiki and its mission, and argues that we as people have some moral objective to not allow our readers to walk away with misinformation about the real world. Maybe I ought to give another example; our article on Xanadu states the canon "party line" that it's fictional, but then has a background note saying that in reality, it isn't. Can you really stomach losing that note? -- Capricorn (talk) 04:28, June 14, 2016 (UTC) :Fair enough. I suppose we could create a template or tag similar to the spoiler tag that says something long the lines of "This article contains ''historical information about a real person/place/thing which does not line up with actual historical fact." It wouldn't apply to everything that didn't jive with reality, such as the Eugenics Wars, which never happened period, but only false claims about real stuff. --LauraCC (talk) 14:27, June 14, 2016 (UTC) :::To be honest, really? What I think is that this is a Star Trek wiki, a fictional universe. We're not wikipedia and everyone who's visiting this wiki should know that this is fiction. We have the realworld banner for articles which are "real". No banner, no reality. And most of the articles have a link to the "reality" wikipedia. Tom (talk) 14:35, June 14, 2016 (UTC) ::I think you're arguing the right point Capricorn, but for the wrong reasons. Tom's right, we are Trek centric, but the writers making a mistake, or just being wrong, about real world information is relevant to MA's mission. I think the wording of the nitpick guideline simply needs to be adjusted to fit with the resource policy. Clearly some types of comparison between the real world and the fictional one is allowed, so the nitpick example needs to be chnaged to show the type of comparison we don't want, and to be clear, I think the note that started this is closer to the type we do want than to the type we don't. - 02:40, June 15, 2016 (UTC) (first, sorry for leaving this for so extremely long; been really really busy. I just hope anyone is still reading this...) Archduk3, it's true I didn't really grasp what you were saying in your first post when I replied, but I think I do now. However, I took your idea of clarifying the wording to heart, and the more I experimented with other ways of making things clear, the more I think that the thing to do is to just outright remove the "Comparisons or discrepancies between the Star Trek universe and the real world" and not add anything instead. I mean, that is literally what the USSR page does, our mutually agreed example of a page with a good note. As long as you just very matter-of-factly explain what star trek said, and then equally matter-of-factly explain how that goes against general accepted belief, I don't think that there is ever really a problem. (at least within the bounds of common sense - don't add the fact that ftl is believed to be impossible to the article on warp drive) Instead from my thinking long and hard about what the nitpick page should say shouldn't be allowed, I came to the conclusion that the problems that these kinds of notes sometimes have is rather from the stuff they do beyond simply pointing out a factual discrepancy, when speculation and editorializing get mixed in. I came here arguing that these notes ought to be an exception to the nitpick policy, but now I don't think they're really nitpicks at all: they're valid notes that are just are really easy to write in an otherwise problematic way. -- Capricorn (talk) 22:14, July 14, 2016 (UTC) ::You've actually made the case for keeping the text and example in the guideline, but moving the current stuff to the "not nitpicks" part. The FTL travel example should replace the current one in the "nitpicks" part. If we want to tweak the wording of the "comparisons or discrepancies between the ''Star Trek universe and the real world''" for each section to better explain the difference, that's something to think on, because we both want and don't want this as worded. - 02:01, July 19, 2016 (UTC) Guilty. Just moving that line from nitpick to non-nitpick was something I considered at one point in my thought process but seemed to radical. It still doesn't feel completely right to me, so what I've ended up doing is ditching the sentence altogether and written two entirely new ones, one for the not-nitpicks list and one for the nitpicks one. I would also suggest replacing the USSR example with another one, as I think this discussion shows that its not the cleanest example. Anyway, so I'd like to provisionally suggest this language: For what isn't a nitpick: "Noting instances where the history, geography, etc (but not scientific concepts, as they might be revised in the future) of the ''Star Trek universe unambigiously differs from reality. For example, Tucker claiming Xanadu is a fictional place when it is not."'' And for what is a nitpick, I have this: "Claiming something is in error because it does not conform to the rules of the real world." With the example "The fact that warp drive violates the current understanding that nothing can travel faster then light"". (By the way, I like that wording because it also includes cases where for example someone survives a fall they shouldn't or gets from place A to B way too fast; things that are also classic nitpick material but which are currently not really accounted for on the page). -- Capricorn (talk) 21:51, July 20, 2016 (UTC)